Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 7.djvu/670

 638 Results of Reconstruction. marked the cessation for another decade of any aggressiveness in external affairs. The country had settled all outstanding questions, and was committed to a thoroughly conservative course. The year 1871 marks the culmination of Republican policy. The three problems which confronted the country in 1865 had been dealt with; and it now remained for time to test the permanence of the settlement. All the South was once more a part of the Federal union, wonderfully changed by an experiment in political democracy more radical than any previously attempted. The debt had been partly refunded and placed on a firm basis; the currency was pledged for redemption ; the war taxes were abolished. The country, at peace with its neighbours, had settled all dangerous external questions successfully. But, in the process of attaining these results, the political conditions of society had been subjected to a terrible strain. The Union party of all loyal men, which controlled the North in 1865, had vanished ; many of its leaders were dead or had retired, or had in disgust joined the Opposition; while its place and power had passed to a Republican party, led by intense partisans, rigidly controlling every governmental act on a party basis. This Republican party showed in the years 1865 to 1871 a forcefulness and a relentlessness of purpose not displayed by any other group of men in the country's history. What they wished, they did. If pledges or conditions previously announced proved inconvenient, they were broken without hesitation. Constitutional objections of the utmost weight brought against their measures were absolutely disregarded, if the end to be attained seemed necessary. Scruples, in short, were as conspicuously lacking as indomitable purpose was visibly present. The result of their policy was that they controlled the country, North and South, with an unyielding grip. It now remained to be seen whether, after the solution of the great war problems, this party domination could continue ; and whether, if it should fall, its work might not fall with it. The six years of Republican domination were followed by a somewhat longer period of reaction against the measures of political and financial reconstruction, and against the party responsible for them. To under- stand this a brief reference is necessary to the economic conditions of the country and their effect upon society. The two decades from 1865 to 1885 were marked in the United States, as elsewhere, by an enormous development along industrial lines, aided by invention and discovery. Railway building became at first a profitable speculation, then a mania, lines being recklessly constructed until competition developed in ex- travagant forms. Manufactures also were extremely profitable during and after the war, and underwent great expansion. Land crazes in connexion with new railways were frequent; and not only private but public credit was copiously lent to aid new enterprises. Add to all this